Faulty MacBook Butterfly Keyboards Cost Apple $50 Million in Lawsuit Settlement

[MacRumors]

Apple will pay $50 million to settle a 2018 class-action lawsuit over the faulty butterfly keyboards that were used in MacBook machines between 2015 and 2019, reports Reuters. Customers in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Washington claimed that Apple knew about the faulty butterfly mechanism and concealed it while continuing to sell computers with the keyboard.

MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook models adopted the butterfly keyboard across 2015 and 2016, with Apple touting the thinness of the keyboard and the superior key feel and stability. Not too long after the keyboards started launching, customers learned that they were prone to failure.

Thousands of customers ran into issues with keys repeating, sticking, and otherwise failing when dust and other particulates got into the butterfly mechanism, resulting in a huge controversy over the butterfly technology.

Apple ultimately launched a keyboard repair program in June 2018, but it only covered MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air models for four years, and Apple would only replace butterfly keyboards with another butterfly keyboard, so some customers have run into repeat failures that are no longer covered. The lawsuit alleged that Apple's repair program was not sufficient.

Apple tried to iterate on the butterfly mechanism to make it more durable and there were three generations of the butterfly keyboard, but all of them experienced issues. Apple ultimately started replacing butterfly keyboards with scissor switch keyboards, and phased out the last butterfly keyboard in 2020, and now all Mac models that are available use the more reliable scissor switch mechanism that predates the butterfly keys.

The lawsuit covers only customers in the above-mentioned states, and lawyers are expecting maximum payouts of $395 to customers who replaced multiple keyboards, $125 to people who replaced one keyboard, and $50 to people who replaced key caps. The settlement is preliminary and will need to be approved by the judge overseeing the case.

Article Link: Faulty MacBook Butterfly Keyboards Cost Apple $50 Million in Lawsuit Settlement

 

[MayaUser]

Outstanding
Beautiful
Justice has been made

 

[jimbobb24]

I have a butterfly keyboard and keys do stick occasionally but for the most part has been fine. Bad deal for people who got lemon keyboards. I wonder if I am eligible to get it replaced?

Not every experiment is going to be a success.

 

[mikbeth]

How do I become a part of this. I guess you have to live in one of the states damn. This was the most egregious fault I've had with any Apple product, I had so many problems with the keyboard I just had to end up replacing the whole laptop.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

So they will each get $1.21 and some lawyers made millions. Cool

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Great news! Not surprised but the lawyers seem to take a big chunk of money. It should be the consumers that should get paid the most amount of $ since they are the ones that had to deal with the butterfly keyboard.

 

[freedomlinux]

$395 to customers who replaced multiple keyboards, $125 to people who replaced one keyboard

That is genuinely a bigger payout than I expected after hearing "class-action". EDIT "up to" $125, but still...

That said, I recall the Butterfly keyboard replacements were quite expensive because:

1. Requires a top case replacement (good job on that "environment" thing, Apple!)
2. Replacements had the same/similar problem anyway

 

[jsalda]

Good. No telling how much it also cost them to repair under warranty/AppleCare. I had to have mine replaced once due to sticking keys, the entire top case has to be replaced, including the trackpad and battery. 6 months after that, had a battery issue, so the entire assembly had to be replaced again. These all-in-one, throwaway designs are bad for the environment and the consumer. It's sad when a phone has more replaceable parts than a computer.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

That is genuinely a bigger payout than I expected after hearing "class-action".

That said, I recall the Butterfly keyboard replacements were quite expensive because:

1. Requires a top case replacement (good job on that "environment" thing, Apple!)
2. Replacements had the same/similar problem anyway

Key words "maximum payout". Most people will see far less than that I am sure

 

[nvmls]

Imagine the amount people who got stuck with these lemons by the lack of support due to resellers only locations, surely Apple over compensated with that.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Good
My 2016 MBP had so many issues and I went through four keyboards.
It’s funny, my first replacement in January 2017, the person at the Apple store did not believe that I actually had a real issue with my keyboard, but since the computer was within the first 60 days of purchase, he gave me an entire new unit.
Had the top case on that unit replaced three times.
By the third replacement in July 2019, when I walked in the store, they already knew the issue before I even told them.
That keyboard was awful, and my latest Apple silicon computer is way better in every way.
Apparently, at least from what I’ve heard, once they reached the third revision of the butterfly keyboard in the 2019 MacBook Pro‘s they were actually quite reliable.
But I don’t think Apple will ever try that again

 

[BootsWalking]

Still much cheaper than a product recall, same as the power throttling issues with the iPhone 6. Apple decides support decisions with dollar calculations in a spreadsheet.

 

[I7guy]

They settled and didn’t admit guilt?

 

[JPack]

No sweat, just consider it the cost of keeping Jony Ive as Senior VP of Industrial Design.

 

[krspkbl]

apple keyboards are trash no matter what. ive had issues with none butterfly keyboards. my macbook and macbook air had keys break after a few days and apple refused to fix them. its one reason i avoid macbooks now. apple are to obsessed with being thin and slim. you’re paying like £1,000-4,000 for a computer with crappy cheap plastic keys.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Good. No telling how much it also cost them to repair under warranty/AppleCare. I had to have mine replaced once due to sticking keys, the entire top case has to be replaced, including the trackpad and battery. 6 months after that, had a battery issue, so the entire assembly had to be replaced again. These all-in-one, throwaway designs are bad for the environment and the consumer. It's sad when a phone has more replaceable parts than a computer.

Luckily, their latest computers have gone back on a lot of this.
Most of them have replaceable trackpads, batteries with pull tabs, and other things that make them easier to replace.

 

[wigby]

Good. No telling how much it also cost them to repair under warranty/AppleCare. I had to have mine replaced once due to sticking keys, the entire top case has to be replaced, including the trackpad and battery. 6 months after that, had a battery issue, so the entire assembly had to be replaced again. These all-in-one, throwaway designs are bad for the environment and the consumer. It's sad when a phone has more replaceable parts than a computer.

I would guess that Apple actually profited off this entire debacle. Think of how many customers experienced problems or just heard about them and decided to go with AppleCare to prevent keyboard and other headaches. It's estimated that Apple made $8.5 billion on AppleCare alone in 2021.

 

[LV426]

How do I become a part of this. I guess you have to live in one of the states damn. This was the most egregious fault I've had with any Apple product, I had so many problems with the keyboard I just had to end up replacing the whole laptop.

Snap. And, I won't be getting any compensation courtesy of geography, despite having to replace the keyboard twice. I'll never forget the sinking feeling I got when keys started to fail. Especially so after the second keyboard replacement.

 

[Schizoid]

As an nginr, I saw the words, "Stainlss stl dom" and immdiatly thought that was a bad ida!

 

[gnipgnop]

"Apple ultimately started replacing butterfly keyboards with scissor switch keyboards, and phased out the last butterfly keyboard in 2020, and now all Mac models that are available use the more reliable scissor switch mechanism that predates the butterfly keys."

The scissor mechanism that Apple currently uses is NOT the same design as the scissor mechanism that predated the butterfly keyboard. Also, how can MacRumors use the phrase "more reliable" when reliability numbers for the scissor mechanism have never been available? It's pretty easy to do a web search and find all kinds of types of failures for scissor mechanism Macs and PCs. Scissor keyboards do fail and the companies that sell them do NOT provide any specific data on the rate of failure.

 

[ProfessionalFan]

They settled and didn’t admit guilt?

That's usually how these things go I believe

 

[oldmacs]

Not every experiment is going to be a success.

Apple should have dumped the ‘experiment’ as soon as the problems started!!

 

[Eric_WVGG]

can't wait to get a shred of my $700 back

 

[ProfessionalFan]

I know I had mine replaced at least once, I think twice. One time they had no stock and I was without a laptop for a few weeks. Love the new keyboard on the 14" MB Pro though.

 

[icanhazmac]

Good! They should pay for that mess. Even though they replaced my POS butterfly multiple times under the replacement program I should still get paid for lost time.